The next day at school, I find myself sitting on the floor of the drama hall cross-legged when someone comes crashing down next to me.
"Hey!" It's Patty.
"What are you doing here?" I ask him. Patty was definitely not here at the meeting yesterday and I certainly didn't take him to be a theatre kid.
"I just joined."
"Wait actually?" I look up and see that Ms. Clarke is glaring at us so I drop my voice down to a whisper. "They let you do that?"
"Apparently." He smiles. It'll be fun to have Patty to hang out with. She finished her instructions so we all get up and get to work. I grab Patty and bring him along with me deciding he's going to be my little apprentice. Ms. Clarke stops me as I walk past.
"Hello dear, I'm so glad you decided to join us. Have you given a second thought to that role? Auditions are next week."
"No sorry," I tell her with a small smile, "I'm just here to work on the set."
"Of course, thank you for that. Let me know if you need any help."
"I will." I turn around and Patty and I walk to the supply closet. I pull it open with a creak and look over the options.
"So I take it you don't like acting then?" He asks me breaking the silence as we walk behind the stage.
"Yes." I mumble. I grab the paint tins and start passing them to him, purposely not elaborating on my answer.
"Why not?" He says after he realises I'm not continuing.
"Fear of large crowds. Can't perform in front of more than a few people without freezing up."
"How do you know you have all these fears anyway?" He looks up at me. "I'm sorry, not the right thing to say."
"It's fine," I say. "I know because this intense feeling overcomes me anytime I am faced with any of them. I can't think clearly and my brain goes all fuzzy. It makes me lose control of my thoughts." I stop realising what a crazy person I must sound like.
"I'm sorry you have to deal with that."
"It's okay," I say quietly. We lapse into silence again. I keep passing him the tins but I am overly aware of our lack of conversation. I rack my brain for something he told me about one of the times we hung out so we can have a topic to chat about but I come up empty. I thought that it was going to be chill now that we both agreed to be friends but I still feel a bit of awkward tension between us. Our fingers brush when I pass him the paint and he freezes for a second. He continues on as if nothing happened but I noticed. Finally, we start painting and its not so bad.
I pretend I'm concentrating really hard to avoid conversation and some of the other kids come up to help us. They act as a bit of a social buffer and I start talking to this girl called Amelia in the class almost entirely just to avoid talking to Patty. He's a really nice guy, but I don't know. I really want to be his friend but if we can't even have a proper conversation anymore it's not gonna work. At the end of the class, we are left as the last two cleaning up. We don't talk but just pack things away silently. I try to sneak a couple glances at him but he seems to be ignoring me. Maybe he's embarrassed about the whole thing? We both grab our bags and he holds the door open for me which is really sweet.
"Uh, see you." I say. We are standing in the doorway. I see him move in for a hug but I throw my hand up for high-five which he reciprocates lamely. Oh God, I made it worse. I should've just hugged him. Why didn't I just hug him? Friends hug each other all the time! He gives me a little wave and walks down the hallway. I just stare after him and get a sinking feeling. I want to be his friend and I really thought we would be cool. But now, I'm not so sure.
I go to the cafeteria and quickly spot Jade. She got her earphones in and is sipping from her water bottle looking extremely bored. She smiles as soon as she spots me.
"Hey girl! What took you so long?"
"Sorry I was cleaning up the set stuff with Patty." At the mention of his name, she waggles her eyebrows and I just shake my head.
"It was super awkward," I say sliding down into my seat. She pushes her tray towards me. We always share our food with each other.
"Of course it is. You guys kinda had a thing and he probably still likes you."
"No. He doesn't," I say. "And we never had a thing."
"I'm not so sure." She grabs a piece of popcorn out of her bag and chucks it up catching it in her mouth. I laugh at her and she smiles. "Omg, how did I not mention this?" she suddenly cries.
"Mention what?" I venture.
"A girl," she says and I squeal.
"Who?" She blushes and I'm surprised. Jade is so confident and bold all the time I didn't think she'd be shy about anything.
"Her name is Indigo. I met her at the party."
"And why did you not tell me? That was ages ago!" I cry. I say it jokingly but to be completely honest I'm a little hurt she's only telling me now.
"I don't know. I just wasn't sure. After everything that happened with Maxine, I just didn't want to make a big deal of it until I was sure." Maxine is her ex-girlfriend, they had a really toxic relationship and she got really hurt by the end of it. She had told me that she was going to wait until she was out of high school before trying any relationships again. She was pretty sure of it, so this girl must be pretty special for her to have changed her mind.
"I get it," I say. "I'm so happy for you! So what, is she your girlfriend?" She explains it all to me, they have been talking quite a bit and gone out a couple of times. It's not official yet but Jade really likes her and she thinks they might be in the next couple weeks. She grabs her phone out to show me a photo. She is really pretty but not in your average kind of way, like an edgy pretty. She has long hair, dyed dark blue and multiple piercings in her nose and ears.
"Dude, she looks cool!" I cry. Jade just smiles shyly at the picture and rests her hands on her cheeks.
"She is." It's really funny seeing her cute and lovesick like this, I'm not used to it.
The bell rings so I trudge off to class, its Chemistry so it's okay because we're in the same class. I can't be bothered doing the work so I end up doing little doodles in my notebook instead. I'm completely distracted so I don't even realise until I'm done that I've drawn a quick sketch of Patty. Jade does though and she just gives me a knowing smile and pats me on the back.
The rest of the week flies by quickly. I hardly have time to hang out with Jade or June. I don't even go to lunch anymore because I'm spending every spare minute in the hall. It's worth it though because the set is starting to really come together. We have a massive canvas drop sheet that we are painting. It's going to be hung up at the back of the stage during our performance. The set we designed is a really dark crumbling building. It's practically all just dark blues and blacks. When we are done I was thinking of adding cobwebs in the corners and vines hanging off the roof. I'm pretty proud of it so far.
As the week goes on, things get better with Patty too. The more time we spend together the less awkward it gets and eventually we are able to be cool around each other again and I'm relieved. He asks me to hang out on Saturday and I agree. It seems we're over whatever weird little blip that was.
I arrive home on Friday and dump my stack of books on my bed and sigh. I have a lot of homework to do this weekend and I don't how I'm going to get it done since I'm hanging out with Patty and June.
"Lavender!" I hear my mum call from downstairs. I run down to see what she needs.
"What?" I ask peeping around the door to where she is seated in the living room.
"Million Dollar Minute is on. Want to watch with me?" We used to always watch the show together when I was having a bad day. It isn't even a good show, it's tacky and overrated but for some reason it has it's charm. It's a classic quiz show where the contestants have to answer a series of questions in under a minute to win the money. We always love yelling the answers at the screen and insisting that if we went on the show we'd win for sure. I'll bet it's what everyone does watching these kinds of shows from home.
I was going to do some homework but the thought of snuggling up with a blanket on the couch is so enticing so I give in.
"So what do you think that guy would do if he won the money?" mum asks. She's referring to the guy on screen with cargo shorts and a tacky Hawaiian shirt that looks like it was bought at a dollar store. I feel bad that he reminds me of my dad.
"Invest in a new wardrobe," I say and she laughs.
"I reckon he'd buy a surfboard and move to Miami to be a lifeguard."
"Sounds accurate." We both laugh. Sometimes the best thing you can do is just hang out with your mum. It sounds lame, I know but we all need it sometimes. The show ends and I say goodnight to my mum before heading up to my bedroom.
I'm offically exhausted and I need to rest. I'm starting fires tomorrow.